ST JJ and George: Comparing and Contrasting Aesthetics

I loved the look and feel of TFA. This was a pretty intimate film in the end, and I really liked that. The "survey" cuts of Jakku when we meet Rey are brilliant. The reveal that her home is the destroyed AT-AT is just brilliant. Fabulous sequence. I loved Maz'z castle... A cantina, but with a distinctly different feel. I found initial image of the Star Destroyer silhoueteed by the planet completey stunning. And finally, the lightsaber duel in the forest is among the best Star Wars scenes ever put to culluloid, IMO. When their sabers were locked, we get the reflection of blue and red sabers in Kylo's eyes, as the light and dark still battle in him. Briiliant.

 

JJ put you in the action GL follows the action. JJ moves the camera GL moves the camera less. JJ directs actors better than GL. GL tells stories visually better than JJ. JJ films move fast and develope characters fast GL uses more exsposition and slower moments to get to know characters. JJ purposely left questions unanswered GL made it up as he went along. GL is a great creative mind JJ is great at adding to something already great. JJ is great at building suspense GL is great at building worlds. IMO JJ was perfect for TFA and I expect Rian to build and expand the story.

 

I really enjoyed JJ's take on a GFFA.
His camerawork tends to be more dynamic than Lucas', which kept potentially dull shots interesting. And yet, he wasn't frenetic about it; it was always easy to follow the action and have a sense of the geography.

And I'm glad he didn't throw in too many aliens just for the sake of having aliens. I expected those gangs on the freighters to be aliens, but was pleasantly surprised to see that they were human. I think having too many aliens can often come across poorly, since both CGI and puppetry tend to look fake and can take me out of the moment. At the same time, the background aliens in Maz's palace were great, but that's partly because they were in the background (bonus points for coming up with all new designs, too. He could have easily fallen back on using tons of creatures we'd already seen in the previous six films.)

One last thing, and I'm not sure if this really relates to the topic of aesthetics, but I thought the fight scenes felt more visceral than anything we'd seen in the previous six films. Whenever someone was shot by a blaster in TFA, I "felt" it more than I ever did in the previous films, and it all seemed much more brutal/war-like than what we'd gotten in the past. In some ways, this didn't sit right with me at first because it made it feel a bit less like SW, but now I appreciate that he was aiming the action at a slightly older audience.

 

Largely agree except for the directing actors bit.

I think making up things as they go along is very apt for both.

What the distinction is between questions unanswered and that is up in the air. I think it's always a bit of both because you might have an idea of what the answer is but then change your mind.

In JJ's case whatever he has in mind might be totally changed by RJ or CT unless KK has decided that certain things are locked down.

Interesting. Can't say I felt that way but like you say I don't think that quite plays into aesthetics as it's generally used now.

 

JJ wisely avoided a lot of the prequel issues, which is spending a lot of the CG on crafting throway worlds for the sake of having something to show.

We go to 4 planets (spoiler free ) on this film; desert, ice/forest, forest and water/island. There was no Kamino, Mustafar, and only glimpses of a city-world.
A lot of my issues with the PT is that Corsucant sounds great on paper but it was a bore when we saw it because the film takes place in the senate chambers most of the time.

There were hints of its seedy underbelly in AOTC but we quickly cut away.

 

JJ is a great person to launch the trilogy, and I think there is a bit of disingenuousness when people pretend there is absolutely no problem with the lack of context we get; the amount of context and exposition we got was less than we needed for certain aspects to carry necessary weight.

I think George Lucas is probably better at all round world building, but JJ is better at creating intrigue about potential within the world.
In a way, it's made me think that they would have been excellent collaborators

 

The look and feel didn't reach the potential of what a Star Wars movie in 2015 should be. It was as if someone with no imagination was behind the locations of the film in the plot.

Yes, they were good, but so what? They could have had the same brilliant cuts on a different non-Earth type world, which is what all Star Wars planets should aim to look like

You are showing your own lack of imagination, here. Sure the reveal of her AT-AT home is a nice shot. But once again, so what? That nice shot could have been shown on any other type of planet on any other type of environment. You know, something we hadn't seen before. George Lucas made sure that virtually every location we go to in the prequels (bar Tatooine) was something we hadn't seen before, and that is a good thing.

If you're going to have a film series set in outer space on multiple planets, it is stupid to have Earth like locations. It's uncreative, and lacks potential to have a million "Earths." George Lucas knew this and avoided "Earth" as much as he could.... especially when the technology became available for him to create his "mind's eye" visually.

 

^ I think this is what I meant in my other posts stating that this is NO George Lucas film, Dan2626 (What you said above). George always made sure we were on a "Star Wars" world. And I also think that's why he might have invested in a lot of those "ships flying in/Ships Landing" shots because it gave the audience a chance to see the world and environment for the set piece. JJ did NOT do this at all. Jakku felt like Tatooine all over again, but with a more war torn back drop.

 

At this point, you are arguing something that is entirely subjective. I loved the visual aesthetics of TFA miles more than the prequels. You don't, and that's fine. We aren't going to change each others minds here. It really comes down to preference.

 

I respect your opinion. I was just pointing out that you're probably "unimaginative". And that's fine. You like Star Wars worlds to look like Earth. I'm a fan of the George Lucas vision of having the worlds look NOT like Earth, because, lets; face it.... we are in a galaxy far, far away and they should look as different to Earth as possible. His vision is what made Star Wars what it is today, and the current film-makers should have respected that. As far as the visuals go, they havn't upheld his vision.

And that's very, very disappointing, to have such a big budget space movie, with all the visual creative imagination at their fingertips.... and they came up with, .. well... nothing.

 

Jakku looks like Tatooine
Takodana looks like Yavin
Starkiller Base looks like another part of Hoth

If there's one misstep in TFA (aside from Maz) then it's the decision to play it extremely safe with the planets. They didn't even TRY to do something even slightly different - why not make Jakku a "red" planet instead? Hopefully Rian Johnson is a little more creative.

 

Exactly.

Why not simply have a giant moon taking up a huge portion of the sky on one of the planets (like on Utapau) or a huge red gas giant in the sky, when we visit Luke's planet?

Something.... just something. Just some sort of celestial body in the sky to indicate we are not just on Earth. Something creative, to uphold George's vision.

 

What a ridiculous conclusion. Just because I preferred TFA's look does not mean I'm unimaginative.

 

I really think it was a deliberate decision to make the planets look more like those in the OT, especially EPIV. After all, this is a sequel and was surely aimed at OT fans. This might change in the next movie, who knows? Bespin, in my opinion the greatest setting of the entire saga, appeared in Episode V after all.

 

Well, it sort of does actually. The implication of liking TFAs "look "is that you like "Earth-type" locations. That's fine. You're allowed to prefer Earth-type locations.

Myself, well I'm a little more imaginative and want more visually from a movie series set in space over multiple worlds that have different planets, species, cultures and looks.

I wouldn't have made the two warring gangs on Han's freighter humans, for instance. I would have made both gangs alien. I'm certain George Lucas would have done the same.

 

I think JJ played it too safe. I loved the film, but there wasn't anything daring about it visually.

 

Exactly. Not just with the planets either, but with the inhabitants of the planets.

For example, with George Lucas we visit Kamino and meet the inhabitants (the Kaminoans), we visit Geonosis and meet the inhabitants (the Geonosians), we visit Utapau and we see the two sentient species of the planet, we even briefly see the species eking out a living on Mustafar. We visit Naboo, and meet the inhabitants also.

In TFA, we visit Maz's planet and know nothing about its inhabitants. Same with the resistance base planet, same with the StarKiller base planet, same with Luke's planet. We don't get to see the species inhabiting any of these worlds.

 

I gotta say, you really hit it on the head or me Dan. Again, I really like the film, but yes, with JJ, it's mostly a human environment/experience (except Maz's watering Hole, not sure if it was Maz's planet ). Even the two groups trying to get even with Han. Okay, there were some aliens in and around the Jakku village, but with the Special additions, George made it more "alien". The animals/non-sentient creatures as well gave the culture a daring look. Too bad, that was a glaring missed opportunity right there for me.

 

The OT never suffered with more earth like worlds, growing up with these films I never looked at that as a negative, it was the events and characters that made it still feel like another world somewhere in space. I like that TFA follows this aesthetic. For me one of the negatives of the PT is those new and more fantastical worlds don't always convince due to the quality of the effects. The scope is to be applauded but I prefer the more grounded look.

This last paragraph is something I noticed too, when someone was shot they dropped instantly dead in a more band of brothers ww2 style of action I thought.

 

I agree. Even the inspect aliens in Maz's bar were to insect looking, if that's a thing.
Visually Maz's bar was a bit of a let down for me unfortunately.

 

GL brought creativity to SW, you could see it in every new film.

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GL was deeply missed on TFA.

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Rhythm and poetry.

 

Great point on directing styles. I must say i very much prefer GL over JJ's style, its much more cinematic.

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Imagination was sorely lacking in tfa!

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